Australia retained the Ashes in grand style after winning the third Test in Adelaide by 82 runs. The match ended on Sunday, December 21. With this victory, Australia took an unassailable 3-0 lead in the series.
The Test match attracted packed crowds throughout five days. A total attendance of 223,638 was recorded at the Adelaide Oval. This is the highest ever for a Test match at the venue. It broke the previous record of 199,147 set during the 2017-18 Ashes series.
Historic attendance and massive audiences mark third Test win
This was also the biggest Test match crowd ever in Australia outside of a match played at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Day 1 alone saw 56,298 fans enter the stadium. That number is the highest single-day crowd for cricket in Adelaide.
Television and digital viewership numbers were equally impressive. As Australia moved closer to victory on Day 5, audiences surged across Kayo Sports, Foxtel, Seven, and 7plus Sport. The interim average audience reached 2.11 million viewers.
The final session on Day 5 became the sixth session of the series to cross an average of two million viewers. It was also the eleventh Test session in 2025 to achieve that mark. This underlined the strong interest in Test cricket among Australian fans.
Cricket Australia’s digital platforms also recorded huge engagement. Around 1.34 million people in Australia visited cricket.com.au and the Cricket Australia Live app during the Test. These users generated 11.6 million sessions. This was a 25 percent rise compared to last year’s third Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test.
Video content consumption rose sharply as well. Views from Australian users increased by 151 percent compared to the same Test against India last year. Globally, the series continued to grow in reach. Cricket Australia’s social media platforms recorded 232 million video views during the Adelaide Test.
Australia have now retained the Ashes in five straight series since regaining them in 2017-18. They will hold the urn for more than nine years when the next series begins in England in 2027.
ALSO READ Suryakumar Yadav Likely to Lose India T20I Captaincy After ICC Men’s T20 World Cup in 2026
